Sunday, 4 December 2011

Indian protesters block trains and torch police cars - dramatic video

THOUSANDS of survivors of the world’s worst industrial accident
blocked trains through a central Indian city on Saturday to demand more
compensation.

The protest came on the 27th anniversary of the disaster in
Bhopal, where a Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked lethal gas that
killed an estimated 15,000 people and maimed tens of thousands more.

Associated Press reports that Bhopal activists and survivors also are calling for Dow to be dropped as
a sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics. On Friday, about 200 protesters
had marched to the now-abandoned plant and burned effigies of Olympic
officials, including Lord Coe.

Activist Rachna Dhingra said police charged Saturday's protesters with
sticks in trying to stop them from occupying Bhopal’s five train lines.
The protesters, most of them women sitting on the tracks, threw stones
at the officers and set four police jeeps and several motorcycles on
fire.

Several people, including a police superintendent, were
injured in the stone pelting, police said. Eight women were detained,
activists said.

Trains were backed up and halted on most lines
through much of Saturday, including the route between Delhi and the
southern city of Chennai.

The five Bhopal victims’ rights groups
that organized the protest demanded that Dow Chemicals, which bought
Union Carbide in 2001, pay $8.1 billion in compensation for more than
500,000 people exposed to the leak.

An overwhelming majority of people are happy to be living in this industrial capitalist world. We know this because we are told it constantly.
How could we foresee a near future in which the hypnotic spell is broken, the scales fall from a billion eyes and those who say 'Enough!' are revealed, all of a sudden, to be a gale force wind of revolt, a tidal wave of insurgent delight sweeping all before it, a minority so vast it will change everything?